Sleep
by FishwichForMyLove
Summary: Tumblr request: "Arthur the sandman and Alfred the dreamer sort of thing where Al wakes up for some reason or something and they fall in love."


**A/N:** Heart-full-of-usuk, who I believe is now usukisses, and formerly gjlkgjlk on tumblr requested the following: "Arthur the sandman and Alfred the dreamer sort of thing where Al wakes up for some reason or something and they fall in love."

This is kind of that. Kind of. Halfway, maybe.

* * *

_Alfred..._

_ …...Alfred _

_ …...wake up... Alfred..._

_ …...wake up..._

…_.Alfred... Alfred... ALFRED..._

"ALFRED!"

With a start and a loud snort, Alfred bolted up straight in his chair, disoriented by his grogginess and the sheet of binder paper stuck to his face. His heart raced and he panted for a few moments before ripping the paper off his face, regretting it when his lower lip started stinging from the pull.

"Are you alive or what?"

"Huh?"

"You were seriously out of it for a while." Matthew was staring at him with a growing concern. He was sitting on Alfred's bed, a textbook open in his lap and a notebook and several pieces of paper spread around him. That didn't make sense until Alfred focused blearily on the desk in front of him- a difficult task without his glasses- covered in identical materials except for the wrinkled piece of paper with doodles and a large drool stain on it. Alfred's brain finally registered the drawings and he sheepishly folded the paper over several times.

"Was I?"

"Yeah, dude. I looked down for, like, 2 minutes and when I looked back up you were conked out. Are you okay? You've been acting kinda weird lately."

Alfred rubbed his face, wincing at the sandy, burning feeling behind his eyelids. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired. Exhausted"

"Not sleeping, or...?"

"No, I'm sleeping. A lot actually." Alfred laughed, though he was unsure why. "A lot, a lot. It just doesn't seem to make any difference." He reached for his glasses, wiping away a smudge with the hem of his t-shirt.

"Maybe you should talk to someone about it."

For some reason, that irritated Alfred. "And say what? That I sleep half the day and still feel like shit? That I can't focus or remember anything? That I hear this constant fucking buzzing sound and I feel like my brain is crawling out my fucking ears?"

"Yes! Say that. That's not normal Alfred and I'm worried."

"Well, don't be," Alfred snapped. Matthew flinched and looked down at his book, and Alfred felt a twinge of guilt. "I'm sorry, Matt. I'm just so tired, and you know what an asshole I can be when I'm tired."

"Only slightly more of an asshole than usual," Matthew mumbled, but smiled after. "Look, I just think you should have this looked into."

"Yeah. Probably." Alfred took a deep breath, the weight of sleepiness still heavy in his chest. He wanted so badly to lay down and close his eyes, but it was only 3pm and he still had all of his history notes to finish. Leaning on the table, cheek against hand, he flicked morosely at the folded up piece of paper.

"Who were you drawing?"

"What?"

"That paper. You were drawing someone. It looked good."

"Oh." Alfred felt his cheeks start to burn, so he crumpled the paper into a ball and made an exaggerated shot into the wastebasket with it, cheering in mock enthusiasm when it sailed in. "No one."

* * *

That "no one" graced the margins of every page of Alfred's lecture notes for the next month. He couldn't help sketching the mystery face on every post it note, grocery list, and random scrap of paper that crossed his path. He wasn't even doing it on purpose, it just seemed to happen. Alfred's mind would wander and suddenly the face would be looking up at him.

It wasn't anyone Alfred knew. The face was completely foreign to him. It wasn't even a mash-up of features he could recognize off his friends or celebrities. But that was impossible. Alfred remembered reading somewhere that it was impossible to dream up anyone that you hadn't already seen in real life. The brain simply couldn't create a person from nothing. His mind had to be basing this stranger off of someone real. He- and it was definitely a he- was in Alfred's dreams almost every night. He never spoke to Alfred, or acknowledged his presence, merely walked through whatever scene it was Alfred happened to be dreaming about at that moment. The dreams seemed to bend around this stranger, as if he was the only thing in focus in an otherwise blurred dream world. He seemed sharper, clearer, more real and all the more strange.

All Alfred could think about was this mystery dream figure. It was a private shame, fast becoming an obsession, a fixation for him, and Alfred found himself wishing more and more that he could just lie down and sleep, to rejoin the stranger in his dreams, to see him walk by. Alfred was afraid he was losing his mind, but that fear was nothing compared to his yearning to know who the figure was.

He had to know.

* * *

_Alfred..._

_ …...Alfred _

_ …...wake up... Alfred..._

_ …...wake up..._

…_.Alfred... Alfred... ALFRED..._

Alfred lurched forward, expecting the darkness of his room. Instead he opened his eyes to an endless field of waist-high golden grasses, so bright he was unable to discern where the horizon ended and the sky began. The glow nearly burned his eyes, but he couldn't not look at the alien beauty surrounding him. It was like nothing he'd ever seen, no where he'd ever been. He spun in circles trying to find some landmark in the ethereal landscape, but the nothingness of the field seemed to extend into forever.

He began to spin giddily, losing himself to a sudden burst of elation. Something was telling him to spin and spin until dizziness overtook him, that he would feel better if only he would do that and fall into the grass. It looked comfortable, smelled so sweet. He would sleep in this place.

Just as the dizzy, happy, sleepy feeling began to drag him down, he saw a white flash out of the corner of his eye. It wasn't worth investigating, a small voice inside him said, and he almost agreed. But then he realized that that voice wasn't coming from his own thoughts. He wasn't thinking it. He wasn't telling himself to spin and sleep and ignore anything else. Alfred forced himself to stop spinning and looked around. When the white flash came into focus, he gasped out loud.

It was the stranger. And this time the stranger was looking back at him with an equal amount of shock.

Before Alfred could think of anything to say, the stranger turned and ran. A new wave of sleepiness hit Alfred heavily in the chest, but he forced his legs forward.

"Wait! Wait! Please, just hold on!"

The stranger looked over his shoulder with a confused, panicked expression, but didn't stop, his strange white toga-like garment whirling and snapping around his bare legs. The ground around Alfred's feet seemed to be sinking down and dragging him back, and he felt as if he would lose his footing at any moment. Still he pushed forward, golden grass whipping around him as he tore through it.

"Stop! Please!"

Alfred's lungs and legs were burning. Each stride forward seemed like the hardest, most painful thing he'd ever done, but still he reached out, forcing his legs to pump faster against the receding earth. Sucking in a huge breath, Alfred felt himself push past the brink of exhaustion with one final leap, arm stretching forward, fingers splayed, as he finally, finally, grabbed the shoulder of the stranger.

As soon as he touched the pale, luminous skin Alfred felt a jolt of pure euphoria, then the world turned upside down. Everything went black as he felt himself fall up, until he slammed down on a soft, bouncy surface. It took him several seconds of groping to realize it was his mattress and he was laying tangled in his sheets and comforter. Alfred assumed he'd been having a weird dream and had woken himself up thrashing around. He almost rolled over without opening his eyes, but a strange feeling in his stomach made him look up at his ceiling.

Only instead of ceiling, he was staring up into the glowing green eyes of the stranger, who was floating about three feet above him.

"You!"

The stranger's face twisted in panic again. "No, no! You're supposed to be asleep." The stranger seemed to be whispering this mostly to himself, and he made a few funny hand motions over Alfred's face. "Go to sleep. I command you to sleep."

A thick drowsy feeling poured down on Alfred, but he fought against it, sitting halfway up and forcing the stranger to float away even higher. "You command me? Who are you? _What_ are you?"

"You don't see me. You're asleep and you won't remember this in the morning. You won't remember me. You won't remember." Again, the floating stranger was muttering this under his breath while waving his hands about and Alfred laughed.

"Dude, cut it out. It doesn't work. I always remember you."

The stranger's face went expressionless before he whispered loudly, "_Shit_."

"What?"

"They're going to fire me. This is it. I've cocked up. I'm dead." The stranger floated higher up and ran a hand through his hair, cheeks puffing out in despair.

"Fire you? What? I don't understand-"

"No, of course you don't," he sneered. "I don't either, but somehow you've managed to break free from your dreams and find me, and now my life might as well be over."

The stranger floated moodily in silence for several moments. Alfred slowly sat all the way up, still feeling disoriented.

"So... who are you?"

The stranger scoffed. "You haven't figured it out by now? I bring your dreams. Idiot."

Alfred vacillated between being insulted that he'd been called an idiot and being intensely confused. He had to have heard wrong. "You bring my...?"

"Dreams. Yes."

He waited for a punchline, but none came. "Oh. Okay."

"You're taking this well."

"I don't know how else to take it."

The stranger stared down at him with an unreadable expression. Even in the almost darkness, he could see how beautiful his eyes and face were, how bright and golden his choppy, messy hair was. Alfred suddenly felt very self conscious, and fidgeted with his blankets.

"So, do you bring, like, _all _my dreams?"

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

"Like, _every_ single one?"

"Yes, yes, yes. Good dreams, bad dreams, nightmares. All of them." The stranger must have caught Alfred's look because he smiled wickedly. "Even the dirty ones. You're welcome."

Alfred felt his face heat up, and he shook his head. "Why me? Why do you bring them to _me_?"

"Don't flatter yourself. I was assigned to you. Although, I probably should have traded you in when you started noticing me."

"Why didn't you?"

"Er- well. You see, I might have... that is, I thought..." The stranger blew air out between his lips with an exaggerated sigh. "Well, I happened to like you. And I liked your drawings. I could see them, through your daydreams. I was flattered. And I wanted to make this work. But it seems like I failed."

Alfred smiled up at him. "I don't mind," he said shyly.

"Oh."

"I mean, I'm exhausted. But I'm glad I got to see you."

"Thank you," the stranger said cautiously.

"Will you trade me in now?"

"Pardon?"

Alfred cleared his throat and tired to sound nonchalant. "Will someone else bring my dreams now?"

"Well, I-"

"I don't want that," Alfred blurted out. "Whatever I have to do, I'll do it. But I... I like you, too. I want to keep you. I mean, my dreams. With you. From you, or whatever."

The stranger was quiet for a long moment. "Why?"

Alfred laughed gently. "I don't know. They've been pretty good so far. All things considered."

The stranger floated down slowly, as if debating whether he should get any closer. With a slightly pained noise, he finally decided and floated down to sit on the edge of Alfred's bed. It was the closest he'd been to the stranger since touching him in his dream, and Alfred felt a weird warmth radiate from his pale skin. Alfred wanted so badly to reach out and grab the glowing hand resting on his comforter, but resisted.

"All right. I'll stay."

"Really?"

"Yes. But you have to promise me that you won't look for me every night, or I'll get sacked for sure."

"But you'll come back. And you won't run."

"I won't run. But you have to sleep."

Alfred scoffed. "Believe me I want to sleep. Really sleep. None of this dream cardio stuff."

The stranger laughed, and it was the most perfect sound Alfred had ever heard. It was other-worldly, but somehow still genuine and human, and it sent a funny chill down his spine.

"Will you let me put you back to sleep, Alfred? Real sleep this time. No fighting it."

"Okay. How do you do that?"

Instead of answering the stranger reached out and cupped Alfred's face with both hands. Electric tingles burst across Alfred's skin and his face became even more flushed. The contact was almost too much to bear. A hot, sweet tension filled his lower belly, and his mouth opened in a soundless groan of bliss.

"That's it. Just let go."

The happy tired feeling returned like a silk veil being dropped over his head, but the urge to fight it no longer existed. Alfred was too distracted by the strange things the touch of the stranger was doing to him. He sunk back down into his blankets, head dropping gently to the pillow, the tingles racing up and down his body increasing as the stranger hovered over him.

The stranger's shimmering eyes slipped closed as he leaned down, as if to kiss Alfred on the mouth. Alfred found himself wanting that more than he'd ever wanted anything, but he couldn't stop himself from asking another question.

"You know my name?"

"Of course," the stranger whispered, smiling tenderly at him. It gave Alfred butterflies in his stomach, and he squirmed. "Who do you think's been calling to you?" The stranger's smile widened and he leaned down again, but Alfred stopped him once more.

"What's your name?"

The stranger shushed him, warm fingers combing gently through the hair at Alfred's temples. "Go to sleep."

Alfred felt the tiniest press of the stranger's lips against his and he was out, sleep overtaking him with a strong, unforgiving rush. Still, he would remember the next morning that he had heard the faintest of echos as his eyes closed- a silver voice whispering gently, "_My name is Arthur._"


End file.
